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The Ardent Monthly Ledger - Issue #26

January 26, 2018

Grinchta and his evil cohorts are soon to be packing up their bags of wicked delights, and taking with them, too, the festive holiday event zone where many an action-packed battle was fought. How ever can such a void be filled in their absence?

Perhaps with…some new high-level content? That’s right! For all you intrepid heroes who have been hungrily eyeing the world map, wondering week after week just when some of those elusive zones will at last be open for exploration, we can happily tell you that the wait is over!

Patch 4.8, in addition to containing a great many new features and improvements to be enjoyed by players of any level, will also be delivering two brand new high level zones to you all: Turnapin Peak and Gortrin Passage.

For those players ready to continue the perilous journey towards The Crux with the Lumineers, that band of wayward heroes who seem always to be magnets for disaster, then be prepared for an icy new adventure atop an eerie, snow-topped mountain, where a strange evil lurks and a mystery is in need of unraveling. New bounties, new challenges, and a whole new story-driven adventure awaits players in Turnapin Peak!

But just what lies beneath that snowy mountain? What strange passageway ominously twists its way through a cavernous maze of shadows and whispers, and the remnants of a long ago tragedy?

While Gortrin Passage indeed boasts a great many new foes to be slain, it also boasts something quite new and unusual to the game: the zone features a series of optional quests in a hidden storyline which contains seven different possible endings, each the result of unique choices made by the players.

Every outcome yields a different reward. The clues are cryptic, even seemingly non-existent. But through dedicated sleuthing, treasure hunting, and a whole new level of puzzle solving, players will slowly unlock the enigma of just what happened in the caves of Gortrin Passage.

It’s exciting new gameplay for Villagers & Heroes!

What would we do without the always AMAZING Sighfrid of EU1? Everyone, please enjoy his fabulous rendition of that notorious villain we all love to hate, the Stone Lord himself, Pyrrus. Thank you, Sighfrid!

Perhaps the biggest change of all within Patch 4.8, is the addition of a new movement item called ‘Golden Speed.’ As most of you are aware, the speed issue in our game has been a rather hot topic of debate for quite some time now.

While we know it is of course not possible to please everyone, we’ve nonetheless put in countless hours, drafted multiple versions of designs, and crafted special new tech for the sole purpose of implementing a satisfactory solution that we hope comes as close as possible to fulfilling the many different speed requirements and concerns of our players.

So. What is Golden Speed, and how does it work? Golden Speed is a special item found in the item shop which behaves like a mount, but is not a mount. It is an invisible movement item which enables players to run quickly. Though speeds will vary depending on the previously owned enchantments of players, the base movement of speed has now been changed to 100% for all players — this means there will no longer be a vast discrepancy in speed between new and old players!

Everyone will move at the same speeds, and everyone will have access to the same items in the item shop. Additionally, the Premium Mount Speed has been increased from 210% to 215%.

Now, I’m sure some of you are thinking: Well, if this weird thing behaves just like a mount then that means I’m going to be constantly dismounted for every little thing I do, and that’s super annoying!

No. You will not be. In addition to adding an automount feature which automatically activates after combat or resurrecting and reviving (and is an optional setting), we’ve also enabled it so that you will never be dismounted when talking to NPCs, teleporting, or interacting with vaults, village project signs, or village gather bins. Furthermore, after running through water, you will automatically be remounted. In other words, for the most part, the seamless quality of running which has always been enjoyed by the players in our game, will be retained.

All Legacy movement enchantments will be removed from the game, as well as all of the variations of Winged Helm Speed and Fleet Foot. Now of course all of you Legacy players who invested real money in speed items are thinking: What will I get in return, and will I have the same running speed as I did before?

Yes! You will absolutely move just as fast as you always did, and in many cases, even faster. All players who had legacy speed will be given the Golden Speed item for free, and will have their mounted speed boosted to a value that is equal to, or greater than, the value of their previous running speed. In certain rare cases where a player who gain no benefit from getting a free Golden Bridle, they will be given a crown pack instead.

For all non-legacy players, the Golden Speed item will be sold in the item shop for 300 crowns, and additionally unlocks Premium Speed.

What about my Gnomish jumping boots? I love jumping! Can I still jump? Yes! We’ve altered it so that players now receive their gnomish jumping height while mounted. This also applies to all mounts as well as Golden Speed.

Overall, we indeed know that this rather unusual change to speed and the manner in which it has always worked in our game will take some getting used to, but we truly believe that we have found a solution which will benefit everyone, and are confident you will soon feel as we do.

As mentioned previously, Patch 4.8 isn’t just for high-level players, not by a long shot!

Whether it be the altered new HUD, movement changes, re-balanced XP tables, crafting and ranching adjustments, booster upgrades, the addition of special new mounts in Red Darrig Chests, vault modifications, new pet perks, support for Chinese, and so much more, it’s safe to say that this very weighty build contains a great many new features and improvements to the game! There’s a little something for everyone in Patch 4.8.

Hey, Ranchers! How would you feel about having a brand new animal to add to your livestock? Well, please meet the Boar! Though they’re friendly and cuddly like Sheep, and also ask for treats, Boars do not provide fleece, but instead their always durable pelts can be transformed into leather — which will surely aid in crafting pursuits, and hopefully bring a smile to the faces of all you Hunters out there!

And speaking of pelts. In addition to having all new names and icons to distinguish them more easily, all pelts can now be broken down, which will also further aid in crafting endeavors, as will the reduction of grow time for pie ingredients, and the removal of several breakdown recipes in the game.

One of the goals of this build, as you might have noticed, has been to attempt to cut down on some of the often cumbersome amounts of time it can take to accomplish certain tasks. With that in mind, we hope you will also be pleased to learn that we’ve increased the XP boosts of Elixirs of Creation, Nurturing, Reaping, and Mercenary by 25%. Furthermore, attention all Ardent Society Members: We have increased hero and villager XP boosts to 100%!(That’s 50% more!)

Hey, Village Dwellers, are any of you tired of the first village vault in your neighborhood being rudely raided and emptied? Well, with this build, those days should be behind you. (At least for the most part.) The first village vault now behaves the same as the other village vaults do, in that it requires Normal Vault privilege to access, and can be locked to require Restricted Vault privilege.

Red Darrig Chests. Come on now, fess up. Who doesn’t enjoy that little tingle of thrill one gets from the anticipation of wondering just what the surprise gift inside of the big red box will be? Well, we’ve notched up that tingle of thrill for you all a bit, with the addition of several event mounts from over the years, AND three all new exclusive mounts: Black Widow, Sinister Drakata, and Nightmare Tarantula!

These three special mounts are not sold in the item shop. And for any of you gamblers who appreciate knowing the numbers, we’ve also expanded the Red Darrig tooltips to now include exactly what the odds are of gaining certain item types in the chests.

With Patch 4.8, also comes another significant change: a much improved UI on both mobile and PC! And Ivar, our graphic artist and designer of the new alterations, is here to talk about the new interface with you all.

From Ivar:

We are continuing to improve and refine the game UI based on your feedback! On PC, there is an updated bottom bar that makes it easier to see current health, mana and XP:

Click to view full size!

The XP bar has been made much thicker and moved to the top of everything else, so that it’s not at the very edge of the screen where it’s harder to see. The middle section is now a divided orb showing both health and mana, which also allows for the mana text to be larger – addressing a common piece of feedback we got for the original design.

In addition to this, the “Shift” labels at the bottom has been replaced with “^” to make it less cluttered, and the XP count on the right now features full XP values when moused over, rather than just percentages. We hope that these improvements will make the PC version of the game easier to use for everyone

Apart from the HUD, the PC version has also received a font overhaul – giving the game more unified typography – and updated art for the loading screens.

The mobile version of the game has received quite the update as well!

A player portrait is now showing in the top-left, just like on PC, and enemies now have unique portrait borders for bounties, elder bosses and more. The minimap has received updated art as well, including an optional “large map” mode which makes it cover a much larger area of the screen.

Tapping the character portrait brings up the new main menu, which now shows rebirths, the character name, and your current level progress. The bottom-left button now opens a separate menu where you can exit the game or change game settings.

Altogether, 4.8 will polish things up even more, and make things more intuitive than ever!

Changes and Improvements to XP

As also mentioned, this build brings with it some new changes to XP in the game. And who better to explain them to you than our designer, Diet?

From Diet:

There are a few changes to combat experience with 4.8. The first is that level 86 and 87 have been returned to normal experience amounts. When Starfall launched, experience needed for levels 86 and above were hyper-inflated because of the lack of content beyond Glendergan.

This was a soft way of discouraging players from leveling above the bounds of current content, rather than setting a hard level cap at 85. With 4.8, levels 86 and 87 are brought back into the normal leveling curve (so greatly reduced). This same process will happen with levels 88 and 89 with the eventual release of the last installment of the Journey to the Crux questline.

The second change to combat tables is from levels 10 to 70. Leveling was a bit slower than we wanted, even when a player was using Pies, Boost, Ardent Society and the like. Particularly this was penalizing in areas of the game that have a lack of content, i.e. post History of Leo questline and before Traven and Pyrrus.

We have reduced the experience needed across the board, mostly targeting levels 20 through 50. In addition, we boosted some shop boosts to be more effective, most notably the Ardent Society experience boost has been increased from 50% to 100%. The concept here being a mirror between a little change in game, and a little change in the shop, something we’re sure many of our Ardent Society members will appreciate.

As per usual, any change to the experience tables affects all players equally. When you logout before patch day, you will have a percent of current level achieved, e.g. 45% of the way to level 50. When you log back in you will have the exact same percent, e.g. 45% of the way to level 50, it’s just now the remaining 55% won’t take as long.

Happy hunting!

Important Reminder!

Grinchta and his cohorts are not the only ones departing the Seven Realms!

With Patch 4.8, a certain ethereal region with a massive crater in it will also be leaving. Asteria, that statuesque creature who dwells there, and who, for over six months now, has been thoughtfully equipping players with quality gear in exchange for Stardust, will be returning to her home in the celestial skies. That’s right: The Starfall Zone will be gone!

However, Asteria has temporarily left behind four of her most trusted compatriots who will continue to provide players with gear for the price of Stardust. These four special vendors represent each of the classes, and can be found in Ardent Castle, opposite the teleport pad. Please utilize them now, for the length of their stay will not be a long one!

Also leaving the Seven Realms in Patch 4.8, are the Crystallized Vim Vendors in Ardent City. Crystallized Vim Shards have been removed from the game. Leftover shards will be converted into Ruby gems, which are a 1:1 gold sell value compared to the Vim Shard.

Player: AbacusClass: PriestServer: US2

With the launch of iOS right around the corner, we thought it would be fitting to pick the brain of one of our dedicated Android players, and gain their unique insights about the V&H mobile experience, not to mention becoming better acquainted with a delightful member of our community!

When did you first start playing Villagers & Heroes on Android, and how did you first learn about the game? What was it that really attracted you to V&H once you started playing? I first started playing V&H on July 25th (2017). V&H came up by chance while I was going through my suggested apps list in the Google Play Store. Little did I know that when I tried it, I would fall in love! After many years of trying almost every mobile mmo that I could find in the app store, I was blown away by the quality and content within an hour of questing.

How would you describe your gaming background? Primarily mobile? PC? Both? Have you always been an MMO player? What sorts of other games do you enjoy on mobile and how do they compare to V&H? I started gaming with EQ2 and raiding in 2005. Once pc games became undoable with my growing children and diminishing nap times, I took a break from gaming. In 2012, I found a great turn based card mmo on my brand new Samsung Tab 2 7.0 and I have been hooked to Mobile MMOs ever since. I have tried almost all of the big name mobile MMOs, only sticking around to max level in two of them.

P2W, “ingenuitive (boring) combat systems,” inadequate crafting systems, and a swayed (sometimes unfair) focus on PVP are all factors that have made me continue to look for new games. V&H holds none of those negative values; sticking to a tried and true class based combat system, classic crafting, and fun new (for me) systems like rebirth and cooperative guild villages. Plus, for me, the lack of PVP loop holes and wallet emptying upgrades are a huge draw.

As you may or may not have heard, in the next month or two, we will be releasing a ‘Mobile Features Complete’ build. What single most feature are you most looking forward to seeing implemented on mobile for V&H, and why? ENHANCING!! I will be so happy to not have to try to run V&H on my old, only used for bills laptop, just to enhance my crafted gear. Seriously, my laptop sounds like it is about to take off like a jet when I run the SAC. Plus, the graphics on my Note 8 make my outdated 15″ laptop screen look like I am playing a game created in the 90’s, or Minecraft. Needless to say, I don’t have a gaming PC.

The cross-platform facet of our game has always been a draw for many. Are there any aspects of V&H on mobile that you feel are in some ways superior to that of PC? Why or why not? Well, as I said above, my Laptop is an old…um, it’s old. So, for me, graphics, visual skill effects, and over all game play is greatly enhanced on my mobile device. I am quite used to the touch screen spell/action select and movement, it is one of the best mobile designed interfaces. Using my laptop for anything more than enhancing, is like trying to drive stick shift (which I also don’t do).

But overall, as a mobile player, one of the coolest things vs. Pc is I don’t have to AFK. o.O I can use the restroom, wait to pick up my kids from school, change a load of laundry, let the dog out, take a shower, refill my coffee, make dinner… all while gaming, I have yet to see a laptop with water resistant features!

If you’re willing, please tell us a little more about yourself. What sorts of activities do you enjoy when you’re not playing V&H? I am first and foremost a mom to two active little boys, ages 9 and 6. I have a volunteer job with their large, active cub scout pack, holding many titles to support the 60+ scouters. I also volunteer at my sons’ school almost every weekday, and work as a substitute when needed. We have a dog, cat, 2 lizards, and 16 fish at home (the boys really want a bird too, my rule is no rodents). Add to that, normal family life and sometimes it can be hard to find time to play (I just give up sleep to feed my addiction.)

Please describe for us what the experience of playing in a V&H event zone is like on mobile. Kind of like a meet and greet where everyone has the same passion, regardless of how long you have been active! My first event was the Halloween/Druda event. It was there when I first met my new guild family, Lost Heroes, watching Hawk (Boss) tank and Stella heal (along with a lot of other O.P. dps 😉 was an affirmation that skilled veteran players were in game.

Playing a new lower level toon, there is not a lot of opportunity to see higher level seasoned vets during normal questing game play, rebirth players are not in the starting zones long enough to notice their cool gnogs. The event zone is like advertising for the longevity of the game.

Would you categorize yourself as more of a villager or a hero? Are there any ways you feel the villaging aspect of our game could be improved? How about the hero aspect? My heart lies in the hero and questing aspect of the game, but my ego lies in the desire to have the best gear, so I play each focus equally. Keeping my villaging above my hero level so I can craft and wear the best gear available. Crafting is grindy, but I wouldn’t be happy it if it wasn’t. As I mentioned before, the crafting in this game is unlike crafting in most mobile games (If the game even has crafting). It is multi-skill focused and contains almost unlimited crafting/gathering opportunities, plus fishing rocks in all forms.

The only thing that would make it better would be to have rare crafted gear that can only be made with an epic drop from an Elder boss (think Elder gear but with the flexibility to craft purple 2+ elder skill boots if you have an elder drop and the required crafting level, and make it not soulbound, I need gold ;).

Quote time! Everyone has a favorite quote, be it from a film, a book, a historical figure, etc. What is one of your favorite quotes, and who said it? Being a mom I have quite a few trit quotes, like “this too shall pass,” and “cleaning your house while your kids are growing is like shoveling snow while it’s still snowing” but my favorite all time quote is by Winnie-the-Pooh: “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”

On your V&H dream wish list, what are a few features that you would absolutely LOVE to see added to the game in general?

Single group dungeon instances for elder bosses (only because of my other suggestion to push for elder grinding and the problem that would create with camping)

VOIP in game, typing gets in the way of playing.

You just bumped into a guy with an iPhone in a coffee shop, and he’s loudly complaining about how he’s insanely bored with all of his usual mobile games. How would you pitch Villagers & Heroes to him? It’s old school mmo for your phone! Everything you love about wow, eq, and runescape crammed into the palm of your hand, complete with a far better community than any other game I have ever come across (Shout out to US2 and its wonderful peeps).

As you all know, we made some changes to the frequency of how often Royal Guardians are appointed, and no longer operate on a quarterly fixed schedule. This was done so as to hopefully prevent the process from simply devolving into a popularity contest.

The position of Royal Guardian was created to honor outstanding individuals who go above and beyond in their efforts for the game and community. We felt that removing the fixed schedule will ensure the integrity of the appointments.

So we are very pleased to announce that four very special players have just joined the ranks of Royal Guardians! Congratulations and thank you to the following individuals for their outstanding contributions to Villagers & Heroes.

The new Royal Guardians of the Realm, appointed on January 26, 2018, are:

JoanaaBR (US1)

aliasSam (US2)

Glockenfee (EU2)

And now for the section we always look forward to and love!

The Sneaky Scribbler has again been cavorting around the servers, and assembled yet another wonderful concoction of stray comments, unusual discussions, and amusing remarks made by the players of V&H in World Chats for us. Thank you, Scribbler!

From the Sneaky Scribbler:

YOU SAID IT:

Don’t go all yeti on us:I had to run out there bearfeet.” — Yowie Hunter (US2)

When to decline:
Selekia: How can I invite a friend to my guilt?
Ice Hands: What a philosophical question.
Hades32: Why do you want to make someone guilty?

New boss AOE:Mini bosses started pooping I guess. — playpunks (US2)

The crafting grind:Lol 4 levels of gardening, 1 level of cooking and I can make the sweat pies. — Jenny The brave (EU1)

It’s a Mash, It’s a Monster Mash:Run to Ghoulio, he’s living in the Grinchta’s paradise… ehm, Druda’s. — Carrier (EU1)

Cmon: Poor druda not a pop star anymore…
Jark: I remember when she was part of that all-female trio in the Marshlands … but then she lost the plot
zyani: most pop stars do get famous after death tho
Cmon: Ahaha! I’ll buy Drudas mixtape after event…
Cmon: Hope there gonna be single Druda – Elements of Hween
zyani: guess it’s called “Resurrection to the 4th”
Cmon: Or “baby kill me one more time”

It’s /block player name:
Alpha Male: the weirdest thing happend to me when I heard sound from blackfury gorge in porn
Maskrosen: Omg
Arcola: too
Alpha Male: then i realized its not so original
Arcola: much
Maskrosen: Awkward 😛
Arcola: information

Freudian typo?
JigglyBits: good morning
Peace Heal: moaning!

It’s just not worth it:Selling my body for gnome zog… — Aurius (US2)

Totally worth the talent points:
Kankumab: anyone know what blazing speed does for a fire wizard?
Thold Ristin: fly off bridges, run into trees and buildings